Henna tattoo warning after hair dye death

A coroner has warned about the dangers of getting henna tattoos on holiday after a woman suffered a severe allergic reaction to hair dye and later died.

Julie McCabe died in 2012 after suffering an extreme allergic reaction to a chemical in her L'Oreal hair dye.

An inquest into the 38-year-old's death heard the same chemical was also contained in massive amounts in black henna tattoos and that they increased susceptibility to an allergic reaction.

The hearing heard Ms McCabe, of Cowling, near Keighley, had a black henna tattoo in Dubai in 2007 and her regular reactions to her hair dye increased after this.

Today, returning an accidental death verdict, Mr Fell said he would be writing to the Department of Business Innovation and Skills to ask it to look into increasing public awareness of this danger.

He said: "People think it's a good idea to let their children have a black henna tattoo. That child could go through life 10, 15, 30 years and the first time that child dyes its hair there could be an anaphylactic reaction."

Mr Fell also called on the cosmetics industry to do more to find out how many customers have adverse reactions to their hair dyes, saying it had "grossly under-estimated" the scale of the issue.

A L'Oreal spokeswoman said: "Our thoughts are with Julie McCabe's family. We welcome the coroner's recommendations and will work with the CTPA and rest of industry to look at ways to improve gathering of information.

"We fully support his decision to send a report to BIS (Department of Business, Innovation and Skills) highlighting his, and the industry's, concerns about black henna tattoos. We will support increased industry efforts to build awareness of the allergy risk black henna tattoos can cause".